Sunday, November 24, 2002

Lou’s corner

This week, ombudsman Lou Gelfand addresses the issue of bias in The Minneapolis Star Tribune. The column appears to have been pulled from the website, but here’s what remains:

Lou Gelfand: Coverage of West Bank hostilities leaves some readers seeing red
Israeli and Palestinian loyalists agreed last week that the Star Tribune's coverage is biased. For different reasons, of course.

I love that language of moral equivalence. Change it slightly and you can see how bizarre it is.

Lou Gelfand: Coverage of Final Solution leaves some readers seeing red
Jewish and NAZI loyalists agreed last week that the Star Tribune's coverage is biased. For different reasons, of course.

Let’s take this a little further. Here’s a quote from the The Star Tribune’s assistant managing editor, Roger Buoen, earlier this year:

We also take extra care to avoid the term “terrorist” in articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute.

Applying that same philosophy to another era, we get:

We also take extra care to avoid the term “genocide” in articles about the Jewish-NAZI conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute.

Eric Olsen took apart a similar argument used by NPR:

Sadly, rather than appearing neutral, which may or may not be their actual goal, NPR appears to favor the Palestinians because there is no definition in any language on the face of the earth that doesn't conclude that ‘terrorism’ is the purposeful killing of noncombatants to frighten said populace into changing policies the ‘terrorists’ don't like. When one appears to be bending over backwards to achieve ‘neutrality’ and said ‘neutrality’ requires contortions, evasions and moral blinders to be maintained, that very ‘neutrality’ becomes evidence of the opposite.

There is no moral equivalence between those who desire to live in peaceful co-existence with their neighbors and those who wish to “drive them into the sea” because of their religion and ethnicity. The inability to recognize the distinction is strong evidence of bias, or worse.

UPDATE: Lou's column is back online.

UPDATE: Here's an Opinion Journal from February making much the same point.

the Minneapolis Star Tribune is willing to call al Qaeda a terrorist organization. But if you murder only Jews, you are not a terrorist--at least in the eyes of those who edit Minnesota's largest newspaper. We wish we were making this up, but it's right there in yesterday's column by Star Tribune ombudsman Lou Gelfand.





Front-page graphic detail of the rape of an 8-year-old
Mike Needs, ombudsman for The Akron Beacon Journal, reports that:

[S]everal readers thought the Akron Beacon Journal crossed [The boundary line that separates reality reporting and reader sensibilities] with a Nov. 16 front-page story that described the rape of an 8-year-old Akron girl. The information provided was far too detailed and far too unnecessary, they said.

One reader wrote: “I am completely outraged at your reporting of the most private details of the young girl's rape. You have moved beyond the realm of decency and human compassion.”

Needs doesn’t say if the girl was named in the article, but regardless her friends and acquaintances will be able to figure out who she is. The Beacon Journal’s story seems to fit into a modern trend of providing more detail about rapes under the rationale of removing “stigma.” Or, as another reader said:

...newspapers need more reporting on rape, not less. “Maybe the publication of such details will assist in educating the public as to the reality of rape as a power/dominance matter rather than a sexual one.”

There are two problems with that argument. First, rape is not merely a “power/dominance matter rather than a sexual one.” Poynter.org’s Bob Steele quotes from author Helen Benedict’s Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes:

Rape is best characterized as torture that uses sex as a weapon. Like a torturer, the rapist uses sexual acts to dominate, humiliate, and terrorize the victim," Benedict writes.

"To deny the role of sexual humiliation in rape is to deny victims the horror of what they have been through. As long as people have any sense of privacy about sexual acts and the human body, rape will, therefore, carry a stigma, not necessarily a stigma that blames the victim for what happened to her, but a stigma that links her name irrevocably with an act of intimate humiliation."

"To name a rape victim is to guarantee that whenever somebody hears her name, that somebody will picture her in the act of being sexually tortured. To expose a rape victim to this without her consent is nothing short of punitive."

Second, while it may be courageous for a 24-year-old victim to come forward with her story, an eight-year-old lacks the maturity to make such a decision. Publishing the graphic details of the young girl’s rape does little to remove stigma, and links “her name irrevocably with an act of intimate humiliation.”

A reader sums it up best. “The Beacon Journal has merely added to the continual degradation of our societal norms. . .”

Friday, November 22, 2002

Taxpayer-funded sex discrimination

PostWatch is exposing institutions that discriminate on the basis of sex, yet receive Federal funds.

I'm shocked, shocked!



Blackface, the new anti-establishment protest?
According to Erin O’Connor, there appears to be a sort of mini-epidemic of blackface-related incidents on campus:

…I want to stress the highly stylized pattern that surrounds the wearing of blackface on college campuses. It's almost always fraternity brothers who do it; they almost always do it at Halloween; they always incur the righteous wrath of the campus; that wrath doesn't distinguish between dressing as tennis stars and dressing as Sambo; there is always some kind of discipline; often, in the process of doling out the discipline, administrators violate the offenders' constitutional rights; there is also always talk of institutionalized racism--the history of minstrelsy is always invoked, as are the less-than-optimal numbers of black students on the campus in question. To say that blackface episodes signify the presence of unreconstructed racism on campus is to miss the wider picture, which is that the donning of blackface is one scene in a complex campus-wide dramatization of the racial tension built into the multicultural agenda that presides over an increasing number of college campuses.

Fraternity members wear blackface not because they don't know that it will be seen as racist, but because they know it will. They are deliberately flouting campus convention with their costumes; I would argue that blackface says less about the racial awareness of its wearer than it does about his rejection of politically correct codes of conduct. The white male fraternity brother is the emblematic oppressor on campus today--he symbolizes all that the many speech codes, harassment policies, sensitivity workshops, and diversity requirements cluttering up his campus most revile. To use the phraseology of oppression theory, blackface as it is worn on campuses today might more rightly be understood as a form of resistance than a sign of neanderthalism. That doesn't make it right. But it might help explain it.





Study Finds Sex, Pregnancy Link
If you want to read some funny material, go to Bob Levy’s column in today's The Washington Post.

via Media Minded



Life repeats Woody Allen, only without the laughs
In his campy comedy Bananas, Woody Allen goes to the fictional country of San Marcos where there's a revolution. The country's new president soon becomes drunk with power and decrees that the official language of San Marcos is Swedish, that everyone must change their underwear every half-hour, and that they must wear it on the outside of their clothes so the government will be able to check. Eventually San Marcos is invaded by everyone from Americans troops to the Jewish Defense League.

If Joel Soler, director of the documentary Uncle Saddam, is to be believed, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein is a real-life version of the leader in Bananas. While the people of Iraq are not required to wear their underwear on the outside (yet), Saddam instructs his subjects on how often to bathe (once a day for men, twice for women) and how to brush their teeth. His sycophants greet him by kissing him on the shoulder in a spot about halfway between his armpit and his nipple. He maintains an elaborate art museum containing only portraits of himself. His office must be maintained at a specified temperature determined by his doctors and he is deathly afraid of germs. And this only scratches the surface.

It would be funny if Saddam’s rule weren’t so tragic for his people, and if his military adventures and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction didn’t make him a threat to the rest of the world. He may not be clinically psychotic, but he’s definitely nuts.

Thursday, November 21, 2002

This is just plain gross

My counter keeps track of the last twenty inquiries to The OmbudsGod. It's not protected so anyone can look at it -- the button is just below the Powered by Blogger button on the left. Some inquiries are interesting, some not, and some are weird. For example, someone from Tehran just found OBG by Googling "decapitating sex women pictures." Now I'm not usually one to criticize a person's sexual proclivities, but this is just plain gross.



What’s up, Joe?
I like to follow up on former National Review senior editor Joseph Sobran from time to time just to see what new frontiers of idiocy he’s exploring. Here’s the latest from his website -- he’s taken a stand on Democracy. Apparently, he’s agin it:

When the media find a Senate contest involving Walter Mondale the most exciting race in the country, it’s time to admit that democracy hasn’t quite lived up to its billing. Why is this a system we should impose on the rest of the world, when it isn’t even serving us very well? Maybe regime change should begin at home.





Conspiracy theories in the news
John Chappell posts an interview from Vanguardia with former Adjunct Secretary General of the UN, Denis Halliday. I wonder how many other Europeans think like this? Example:

Q. Why is [the United States] going to [attack Iraq]?

A. Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in the world. It's simply that. The United States wants absolute control of the oil market.

Q. Oil is an obsession of the Bushes.

A. And Bush is ready to do whatever it takes to get control over it. And once it has absolute control, you can be sure that Europe will pay a very high price for that oil.

Q. So why didn't they take over Iraq after they won the first Gulf War?

A. Bush Senior pulled back at the possibility of an explosion of the Kurdish powder-keg and an Iranian intervention. It's a very complex area, very much so.

John speculates Denis is receiving messages in his tooth fillings. If so, he and Mikey Rivero must be tuned into the same frequency.

Actually, that’s not fair. Halliday probably believes this nonsense.

UPDATE: The Blogspot link doesn't work, so I've linked to the top of John's main page. It's the piece posted at 15:55 today.


Don Wycliff on strident hyperpartisan pro-Bush zealots
While admitting that an unflattering picture of President Bush, obtained from Agence France-Presse, “amounted to a Page 1 editorial in which George W. Bush was being labeled an idiot and a clown, unsuited to the presidency,” The Chicago Tribune’s ombudsman still manages to lash out at the “strident hyperpartisanship of those pro-Bush zealots who live to hate Clinton and find evidence of media bias. The zealots probably relished 'that picture' because it confirmed their conviction that the media are against them.”

If the picture didn’t confirm the bias, Wycliff’s column certainly did.

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Michael Rivero and the Toronto Star

I first encountered Michael Rivero in the late ‘90s when he was a common nuisance at FreeRepublic.com, which at that time was the locus of anti-Clinton activity on the web. Rivero seemed a little brighter than your average wingnut, and I always suspected that he was more a con artist than a true believer. Rivero ran a website named Rancho Runamukka to promote his conspiracy theories. He would see a U.S. government plot behind every tree, but didn't seem to share the anti-Semitism of much of the conspiracy crowd.

Rivero has since abandoned Rancho and has another website, whatreallyhappened.com. Whatreallyhappened is a sort of clearinghouse for the conspiracy crowd, and following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 he began promoting increasingly anti-Semitic material. The material is similar to much of the material currently popular with elements of the anti-American Left, and may in fact be a source for them. It has also grown more sophisticated, such that someone inclined to believe the worst about the U.S., and not familiar with Rivero’s reputation, might easily be sucked into treating it as a credible source – at least at first.

Rivero recently hit the jackpot when media columnist Antonia Zerbisias endorsed his website as “carefully considered, well crafted and very compelling” in her column for the Toronto Star, causing something of a stir. Canadian blogger Damian Penny keeps track of Rivero and has the details on his website, but suffice it to say that Zerbisias was alerted to the anti-Semitic nature of Rivero’s site and issued a sort-of apology.

Zerbisias also denounced Bnai Brith for not contacting her before issuing a press release that said, in part:

According to sites recommended by the Toronto Star’s media columnist, Antonia Zerbisias, F. D. Roosevelt orchestrated Pearl Harbour, George W. Bush was part of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the World Trade Centre, and the Jews were behind a rash of anthrax letters.

Zerbisias reports that:

Today [Bnai Brith] applied direct pressure on me and The Star to retract my column, to criticize the anti-Israeli portions of the site, to take my column off our web site etc.

I refused.

And The Star's ombudsman stands by this decision.
As far as I am concerned, this matter is now finished.

Note that my original column is still on The Star's web site.

The ombudsman is Don Sellar, and in his most recent column he admonished his newspaper not to use the word “crusade” because the “Canadian Islamic Congress and many Muslims” are offended.

Draw your own conclusion.

UPDATE: Check out Rivero's Letters section. His responses to his readers are a font size larger, and it's hard to tell who's nuttier. Sample:

EMAIL FROM A READER:
I just read a letter on your site, from one of your many readers concerning the non-existent Israeli casualties in the WTC buildings following the attack on 911. Like many, I also found this highly suspicious, so I checked web sites with the official casualty list. Sure enough, one Israeli and he was a passenger on one of the Aircraft.

I speak German quite well and had some Jewish friends as a schoolboy, so I am able to discern 'Jewish' names better than most. I took a long, hard look at the names of nearly 3000 persons listed as casualties in the actual buildings. In all there were 76 persons with 'Jewish' names like Birnbaum or Goldstein (actually, there were three persons killed named Goldstein who may have been related) while others had less obviously 'Jewish' names.

But I could come up with no more than 76. I would say those are 95% likely to be accurate. I am aware that some Jewish people, to avoid discrimination Anglicised their names generations ago so I will have missed a few, but not too many.

Equally, It is possible the ones I missed will be offset by those I mistakenly included. Names like Morris are not always Jewish but I included a man named Morris. 76 out of 3000? I'm not an actuary, but it seems to me that a 'random sample' of 3000 persons on a New York STREET one would find a greater percentage of Jews than just 76 in every 3000. That's about one in 40.

Taken on the percentage of New York's Jewish population, 1000 in every 3000 would seem more likely. But a 'random sample' of the percentage of Jews in buildings like the WTC is far more likely to to reflect Jewish domination of the Banking and Finance industries, so it is VERY ODD that the numbers should be so low.

To be frank, there is no doubt in my mind that someone knew something was afoot and they have done everything possible to draw a veil of deceit over the truth. 3000 people murdered in cold blood.

If I'm right, take a moment to think about it and what it means for the American people.

The initial claims made by Israel and Bush referred to "Israeli" victims, meaning citizens of Israel. Use of that term specifically excluded American citizens of Jewish ancestry, and it is important to remain consistant in studing the question why died in the World Trade Towers and who may have received an early warning.

The Odigo case proves beyond all dount that early warnings were sent to Israeli owned companies, and Zim Shipping, an Israeli shipping line that enjoys a close relationship with the Israeli government, broke its World Trade Towers lease, and incurred extra charges for a high-speed move out of the building just weeks before the attacks. Rudy Giuliani also moved his offices out of the World Trade Towers just weeks before the attacks.

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

A tale of two newspapers

Toronto Star ombudsman, Don Sellar, reports that the “Canadian Islamic Congress and many Muslims” have complained that the word “crusade” is offensive, even though in common usage it has no religious overtone. Given the prevalence of anti-Semitic and anti-Christian hatred commonly found in Islamic publications, you’d think they’d make an attempt to clean up their own back yard before worrying about their neighbor’s, but apparently that’s not the case. Not to worry, though. Sellar advises the newsroom that “With religion, you can't be too careful. Don't crusade.”

Followers of Islam have no monopoly on hypocrisy, however. Sellar also reports that “the Ontario Press Council last summer upheld an Evangelical Fellowship of Canada complaint that an opinion column in the Star had targeted evangelical Christians in a way that tended to engender bias and hatred toward them.” It determined that in “the context of the column — a spirited rant about intolerance against gays — the term [evangelical] was ‘an unnecessarily hurtful reference to an identifiable group,’ i.e. evangelical Christians.” Yeah, we all know how tolerant evangelical Christians are to that other identifiable group, “sodomites.”

In a splendid display of moral equivalence, “the Star's policy manual walks on tiptoes. ‘Never hold up one religion or set of beliefs as superior to another. In other words, don't be judgmental,’ it advises. ‘Never single out a religion or religious practice for ridicule. In other words, be respectful.’”

Or in other words no religious practice, no matter how odious, may ever be criticized. Requiring women to wear Burqas, or to leap on the burning funeral pyre of their deceased husband, may not be ridiculed or regarded as inferior to taking communion at your local Church. “[D]on’t be judgmental.”

Meanwhile 235 miles away, ombudsman John X. Miller, of the presumably family-friendly Detroit Free Press, faces reader criticism about a prominent, front-page headline, "Warren Santa is charged in killing." The version on their website was even more direct, “Santa's a killer, cops say.” The story was about “why a man who'd dressed up as Santa since 1995 in Warren's holiday parade was charged with killing his daughter in a dispute over Christmas decorations.”

Miller explains that this wasn’t just a last minute slip; “There was discussion among editors about the print version of the story and headline the night it was published, out of concern that the newspaper not go overboard.” The good news is that, “While most of those editors didn't think the newspaper overplayed or sensationalized the story, they said the reactions will make them more carefully consider the sensibilities of our readers.”

Next time maybe they’ll place it on page two.



On pop-up ads and linking
The links on the left side of my website constitute endorsements. I don’t necessarily agree with or approve of the content of a site I’ve linked to, but I consider it interesting or useful enough to merit inclusion on my list. I frequent all the sites on a regular basis.

I’ve removed links before, primarily when a site became inactive, but today I’ve removed one because I can no longer in good conscience refer readers to it. The problem isn’t the content, which continues to be quite interesting, but that clicking on the link triggers multiple pop-up ads, including one that tries to reset the home page on my browser.

Blogs and bloggers come in many different flavors, some more commercial than others. While The OmbudsGod is strictly non-commercial (no donations requested or accepted), I do on occasion make small tips, especially on sites run by professional journalists. I consider blogging to be the best thing that has happened to journalism since the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine, and tipping is a way to encourage the new medium.

If you must use pop-up ads, limit them to no more than one per session, and stay away from anything that would attempt to change a reader’s computer settings. Anything more demonstrates an inexcusable lack of courtesy toward the reader.

Monday, November 18, 2002

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics about people without health insurance

The great justification usually trotted out to justify some form of national health insurance, in addition to Medicare and Medicaid, is that there are 40 million Americans without health insurance. As Iain Murray points out, it is a misleading figure:

that includes people temporarily uninsured for a brief period. The number of chronically uninsured, which is what matters here, is roughly a quarter of that figure. Moreover no-one is ever refused emergency treatment because of a lack of insurance. It is chronic illnesses that cause the most trouble for the chronically uninsured and, need I remind you, the British system of universal health coverage does not do well with chronic illnesses either. Can there be any better indication of the true state of the NHS than the fact that the BBC offers private health insurance to its employees?

Sunday, November 17, 2002

Life imitates Monty Python

In the old Monty Python movie Life of Brian, the Romans and the Judeans had a sort of working arrangement. The Roman’s would always give enough notice of a search so that the Judeans could hide, and would then conduct the most ludicrous of searches, not finding Judeans hiding in the most obvious places.

Substitute UN weapon’s inspectors for the Romans and Iraqi weapons for the Judeans and you have pretty good idea of what the upcoming regimen of disarmament inspections, under UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, will be like in Iraq.

While the Bush Administration is pushing for “intrusive inspections,” Blix has stated that inspection teams should never be "angry and aggressive." And since Iraq is, according to Saddam Hussein, "devoid of weapons of mass destruction," the U.S. has called for a policy of “zero tolerance.” Nothing doing say Blix, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and such dependable U.S. “allies” as France. Iraq will be held accountable only for serious violations.

Presumably anything short of a UN inspector tripping over a hydrogen bomb labeled “serious violation, destination Paris,” will fail to make the standard. A little weaponized anthrax or aflatoxin that the Iraqis have forgotten to hide would be no big deal.

Annan previously distinguished himself in 1994 when, as head of the UN’s peacekeeping department, he dismissed warnings of impending genocide by the commander of peacekeeping troops in Rwanda and prevented searching the Hutu militias for weapons. The UN peacekeeping force was then reduced and an estimated 800,000 additional Rwandans died in the resulting Hutu-perpetrated massacres.

The whole thing would make for a delightful comedy, except that millions of innocent lives hang in the balance while the bureaucrats at Turtle Bay continue to impede the war on terrorism.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan nails the problem with UN weapons inspections much more succinctly than I did -- "I think I have as much confidence in Hans Blix as I do in Jimmy Carter." Exactly.

Monday, November 11, 2002

Non-partisan commentary from PBS, the taxpayer-subsidized network

…for the first time in the memory of anyone alive, the entire federal government — the Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary — is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate…

It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich.

It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable…

Above all, it means judges with a political agenda appointed for life. If you liked the Supreme Court that put George W. Bush in the White House, you will swoon over what's coming…

Don't forget the money. It came pouring into this election, to both parties, from corporate America and others who expect the payback. Republicans outraised democrats by $184 million dollars. And came up with the big prize — monopoly control of the American government, and the power of the state to turn their ideology into the law of the land. Quite a bargain at any price.

That's it for this week.

For NOW, I'm Bill Moyers.

via Andrew Sullivan

UPDATE: A reader copied me on a letter he has written to PBS management demanding that Bill Moyer's association with PBS be terminated. My own view is that rather than terminate Moyers, PBS should cease to accept taxpayer funding. In that way freedom of speech and of the press is preserved without obligating taxpayers to pay for political broadcasts with which they may disagree. Moyers is merely a symptom of the problem.



A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Lillian Swanson, ombudsman for The Philadelphia Inquirer, reports on special “basic training” for journalists assigned to war zones. According to Clark Hoyt, Washington Editor for Knight Ridder (which owns The Inquirer), “we were not going to send anyone into a war zone who had not gone through the training.”

Given the likely fate of American journalists captured by Islamic terrorists, probably the most realistic part of the training came on the second day, when:

There was a boom and a flash of fire. The bus stopped and masked men, wearing fatigues and pointing rifles, got on board, screaming.

Hoods were placed over the journalists' heads, and they were led off the bus. They were forced down on the grass and stripped of their valuables - watches, wallets and wedding rings.

According to Swanson, ”The International Federation of Journalists says more than 50 journalists have been killed this year covering conflict in the world's trouble spots.” She doesn’t say how many would have been saved by this five-day, $2,535 “training.”



OmbudsPrizes!
After reaching a sizeable round number of sales, supermarkets like to create publicity by rewarding a surprised customer with free groceries. Ian Murray, ombudsman for The Guardian, recently rewarded the reader registering this year’s ten-thousandth complaint with a copy of his riveting new book, More Errors and Corrections, which is the sequel to his original hit, Errors and Corrections. Winner John Parker was informed that he would be receiving the book, “whether you wanted it or not.”

Ian helpfully reminds Guardian readers that they, too, can obtain both volumes, for the sum of ₤6.99 each, by calling 0870-066 7850. Sounds like an ideal stocking stuffer for that special obsessive-compulsive someone in your life.

Sunday, November 10, 2002

Dreamers

Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.

– Siegfried Sassoon, Counter-Attack and Other Poems, 1918.
More of Sassoon’s poetry may be found here.
posted at 10:45 AM


All's quiet on the OmbudsFront
With the election over, OmbudsLand is relatively peaceful this weekend. Here’s a partial rundown:

Over at The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Lou Gelfand treats readers with respect. Even when disagreeing with criticism by journalism student Gary Schwitzer, he observes that, “in principle, Schwitzer makes a good point.” That’s a polite brush-off, Gary.

Karen Hunter, with the Hartford Courant, takes her paper to task for reporting, from an “anonymous source,” the bogus information that "The FBI Has Bugged Our Public Library." The author of that howler is one “former executive director of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union,” Bill Olds, who explains, “In the atmosphere of secrecy created by the Patriot Act, my sources misinterpreted what the FBI was doing." Perhaps the tinfoil on your "sources" heads should have given them away, Bill.

Meanwhile, at The Orlando Sentinel, Manning Pynn reminds readers that just because a newspaper sells advertising to a political candidate, including on the bag in which the newspaper is delivered, doesn’t mean that it lacks impartiality. This strikes me as a rather odd subject given that The Sentinel issues political endorsements on its editorial pages – which certainly does create an appearance of lack of impartiality.

Mike Needs, The Akron Beacon-Journal’s resident apologist Public Editor, gives his employer a hickey for not publishing a photograph of an elderly woman and her son grieving over the murder of a neighbor. It seems:

They sent a message through the police asking -- no, pleading -- that the photo not be used. The son explained that his mother feared for her safety and that a photo, combined with the angst of the attack, would be too stressful.

At least the photo didn’t go to waste -- Needs got an entire column out of it.

The Louisville Courier-Journal’s Pam Platt draws a lesson from the TLC network’s show, Trading Places.

I don't think Hilda and Doug, two of the designers who work on ''Trading Spaces,'' could be less interested in the likes and dislikes of the folks whose homes they invade like Normandy.

Sure, they ask for nominal input and get it -- ''Our friends don't like dark colors, they don't want you to touch their furniture and they love their ceiling fan,'' the worker bees are likely to buzz.

In the next instant, the two diva designers are likely to blithely reply, ''OK, great, thanks. We're going to paint these walls black, we're going to shellack (sic) the furniture and that ceiling fan is history.''

In other words, no one listens, and no one is heard and sometimes someone ends up with straw glued to their walls. No kidding.

So when readers want to ''trade spaces'' with me -- that is, phone or email to talk about what's junking up journalism in general and this newspaper in particular, and what needs to be cleared out or spiffed up -- I try not to go all Doug or Hilda on them when they share their likes and dislikes.

Connie Coyne, OmbudsLand’s very own Hilda, dismisses a reader’s complaint about a piece promoting Eminem in The Salt Lake Tribune. She informs the reader that back in the ‘50’s Her parents:

were sure my generation would wind up in the eternal flames because we were dancing to Little Richard, Elvis Presley and -- gasp -- Jerry Lee Lewis (who, as I recall, was married at one point to his 13-year-old cousin).

Hilda’s advice to the reader? “if you don't like the subject of a review, don't read it.”

With advice like that, who needs an Ombudsman?

Saturday, November 9, 2002

Gender Equity at Penn: women get tenure, white men do not

Associate Professor Erin O’Connor reports on the continuing pursuit of Gender Equity at the University of Pennsylvania.

If tenuring patterns in my own department are any indication, white men have been aiding the cause of "gender equity" by getting fired quite a bit over the years. The double standard is as palpable as it is unspeakable. But the bottom line is that women get tenure in my department and white men, more often than not, do not. The disparity has nothing to do with differential levels of accomplishment. Again, more often than not, the men who lose their jobs look as good or better on paper than the women who get promoted. Has this ever been publicly acknowledged? No. We aren't talking about the fact that the graduate program has become a sorority either. Not talking about the problem means, of course, that it does not exist, and so does not need to be addressed. It also means we do not need to ask if this is happening in other departments. And it means that we can all pat ourselves on the back for the great equity work that is being done locally, while at the same time continuing to bitch about the institutional oppression faced by academic women and minorities. Not healthy, not honest, not, quite frankly, conducive to imaginative teaching or inspired scholarship.

It's not just men who are getting screwed by the current academic climate. It's everyone. But last December, when Penn announced its plans to create "concrete incentives and disincentives" to promote the hiring and tenuring of women, no one made a peep (except those who feel that even this is not enough).

The one thing a University typically listens to very closely is its pocket book. Alumni, especially white male alumni, may wish to consider this report when asked to contribute to their alma mater. A few lawsuits by white males who are denied tenure would also be helpful.

via Discriminations
posted at 6:22 PM


Anti-Americanism
Soviet émigré, Jaime Glazov, conducts a symposium for Front Page Magazine on anti-Americanism. The participants are Paul Hollander, Stanley Kurz, Dan Flynn and Victor Davis Hanson. Kurz, Flynn and Hanson all comment on the religious, or almost religious, nature of anti-Americanism. Hollander disagrees:

I would not call anti-Americanism a faith -- it is too negative for that, in fact it is nothing but negativity, rejection and hostility. I agree that in some instances it might reflect failure to find meaning and happiness, but it has many shades and types and not all of it can be said to be a reflection of such states of mind or feeling.

It’s a good symposium and well worth reading.

Thursday, November 7, 2002

Losing Endorsement

The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Michael Getler, autopsies The Post’s list of endorsements, and makes an important point:

...Maryland-based independent pollster Carol Arscott, for one, believes that endorsements "mean less and less every year now, especially with Republican voters, and the further outside the Beltway you get, the less they matter."

As ombudsmen frequently remind readers, there is a “wall” between news reporting and editorials. Getler assures us that:

I can say with confidence that the "wall" between editorial and news seems intact and secure at The Post. But you can't blame readers who are not students of journalism for suspecting otherwise.

He’s probably right. The editorials don’t drive the news reporting, but they do reflect the overall culture of the newspaper. Recent biographies of the two candidates for Governor of Maryland drive home the point.

James DiBenedetto, writing in his weblog, The Eleven Day Empire, reported on the difference in coverage for Republican candidate, Bob Ehrich, and for the Democratic candidate, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend – who The Post endorsed:

While the Kennedy! piece opens with this sentence:

She always wanted to do what was right.

Ehrlich's bio begins with a description of the exclusive (read: elitist, plutocratic, rich, white) country club where Ehrlich is found hosting a campaign event:

Hounds are baying in the twilight. A chestnut mare gleams in a paddock. In a verdant valley in northern Baltimore County, a gubernatorial contender is being feted at Maryland's oldest fox hunting club, the Green Spring Valley Hounds. The sign at the end of the unpaved lane leading to this rarefied enclave is so discreet it is marked with initials -- "GSV" -- because if you have to ask how to get here, you don't belong.

A paragraph later, we're told that:

Inside a white tent, lanky men with chiseled features and family trust funds line up to pay homage.

And while the first words used to describe Kennedy! were "good" followed by "philosophical" and "careful", Ehrlich is first described thusly:

Ehrlich -- whose luck, pluck and football prowess catapulted him from his parents' modest rowhouse to prep school and Princeton...

Good, philosophical and careful versus luck, pluck and football prowess.
There's a full page more of this on the inside pages of the paper, but you get the idea...

I guess it could be worse, though; they did at least find something vaguely positive to say about Ehrlich.

Still, it clearly pales in comparison to the Kennedy! article, whose basic premise is that Kennedy! is too good for the voters; lumpenproles like the Maryland electorate are unworthy of Saint Kathy, but she'll deign to take office as a matter of noblesse oblige.

“Good”, “careful” and “philosophical” Townsend relied heavily on the politics of divisiveness, as when she declared:

Slavery was based on race. Lynching was based on race. Discrimination was based on race. Jim Crow was based on race. Affirmative action should be based on race.

Ehrlich relied heavily on the politics of inclusion, as when he selected Michael Steele, an African-American, to run for lieutenant governor. Townsend’s supporters responded by distributing Oreo cookies at a political debate to send a message about blacks (like Steele) who don’t follow the Democratic Party line.

A lot has changed in America since 9/11/01. Threatened by an outside enemy, who kills Americans without regard for race, we have grown together as a nation. Ehrlich reassured supporters during his campaign that, "the first time the race card doesn't work will be the last time it is used."

Despite The Post's biased coverage and an endorsement of his rival, the race card didn't work. Let’s hope that Ehrich's right that, at least in Maryland, this is the last time it will be used.


Ombudsman Don Wycliff and religious tolerance
The Chicago Tribune’s ombudsman, Don Wycliff, has stated:

ask any American for a thumbnail sketch of himself and it's a good bet his religion will be among the items he ticks off. And why shouldn't it be? I can't think of too many things that have been more influential in my world view and intellectual formation than my religion…

How then do we handle a clash of cultures when a religious tradition treats women differently than men?

Here’s the setup from a column entitled “Everyday Ethics:”

The courteous and competent real estate agent I'd just hired to rent my house shocked and offended me when, after we signed our contract, he refused to shake my hand, saying that as an Orthodox Jew he did not touch women. As a feminist, I oppose sex discrimination of all sorts. However, I also support freedom of religious expression. How do I balance these conflicting values? Should I tear up our contract?

According to Wycliff, columnist Randy “Cohen's answer, in short, was yes, tear up the contract.” Further information is provided from a Rabbi that:

Orthodox Jews, both men and women, are forbidden by their modesty ethic to touch a member of the opposite sex. It works both ways.

Wycliff observes that:

Orthodox Judaism, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims and God knows how many other religious groups have restrictions and categories and orders premised on sex, sexual orientation or some other characteristic that, by strict secularist lights, is simply and unacceptably discriminatory.

He concludes by stating that:

my head tells me that Randy Cohen has it right, that in the last analysis separate really is inherently unequal and inequitable, that "resolutely secular" is the only viable approach to these matters in a pluralistic society.

Does this mean that Mr. Cohen and Mr. Wycliff will no longer be doing business with Orthodox Jews, Catholics, Mormons and Muslims?

Wednesday, November 6, 2002

Anti-war moderates just don’t get it

Ronald Radosh sees in the current anti-war movement a disturbing parallel with that of the Vietnam War. Just as the earlier anti-war movement was organized by the pro-communist left, the current movement is dominated by pro-Iraqi leaders. He asserts that:

the anti-war moderates don’t get it. Their only criticism of the anti-war movement is that it will not be able to stop the drift toward war with Iraq. Writing on the Web site of Mother Jones magazine, Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism at New York University, asserts that this movement "is far too weak and provincial to stop the coming war." What he seeks to build is a "more substantial antiwar movement," and he is saddened that the pro-Saddam orientation of the present movement can only stand in the way of that task. Mr. Gitlin is aghast that the present movement is indicative of "the Old Left at its worst," and he is correct to oppose it. But what upsets him is that with leadership by the likes of [Ramsey] Clark and the Maoist C. Clark Kissinger, "the antiwar movement is doomed."

What Mr. Gitlin, a centrist radical, implies is that the goal of the movement, to stop any planned invasion of Iraq is worthy; the only wrong thing is the movement’s current leadership. If only they stopped comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler, something Mr. Clark did at the March, then perhaps involvement would be worthwhile.

And that is the great error of the new antiwar movement. They may not agree with Mr. Clark when he says any invasion of Iraq "will be genocide again," but they, like him, are also opposed to an invasion. Since Mr. Gitlin presents no alternative to invasion for removing Saddam from power, and no suggestion how he can be forced to disarm, in effect his argument leaves Saddam firmly entrenched just as calls for unilateral American withdrawal in Vietnam assured victory for the Viet-Cong.

The moderates, like the extremists, seem to prefer to vent their anger at the danger supposedly posed by the Bush administration, while ignoring the very real danger posed by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

via Discriminations



Fire and Brimstone!
The New Zealand Herald reports that:

CANBERRA - The "lucky country" is unlikely to be so fortunate in the next 100 years as Australia's big cities sprawl even further and the warming Earth dehydrates its resources, hammers health and lashes the continent with a 21st-century equivalent of fire and brimstone.

Two new studies, on population growth and climate change, predict the nation will have a harder time preserving its standard of living as plague, pestilence and disaster increasingly become part of life.

Repent, ye sinners!

More on the D.C. anti-war protests

Lex Alexander, proprietor of Blog on the Run, sent me an email observing that:

Re the DC protests: Granted, I have found no particular reason to doubt that the event was organized by people inimical to U.S. interests and perhaps even puppets of Iraq.

But ...

Could such a group, in and of itself, have mobilized between 100,000 and 200,000 protestors from as far away as Nebraska and Florida?

Whatever the motives of the organizers, I think a lot of people showed up who were sincere, if misguided. The alternative is to believe ANSWER has a lot more power than anyone ever suspected, and there's just no evidence for that.

He’s quite right. I’m reminded of the well-meaning people who were drawn into peace movements led by Soviet front groups like the U.S. Peace Council. Front groups use their superior organization to latch onto dissatisfaction and to use it. There’s never been a shortage of useful idiots.

UPDATE: The Mother Jones website asks their readers:

Millions of Americans from all points of the ideological compass have expressed deep ambivalence about the Bush administration's rush to preemptive war. Now, a popular antiwar movement is stirring. Can the current leadership of that movement -- and the message they carry -- attract the support of those millions of quiet antiwarriors?

I agree with much of this reply, especially the observation about a segment of the left cutting "loose from the 'national dialogue.'":

Yeah. I'm aware of some of the people behind the current anti-war movement. I find it disturbing. Sadly, I see no possibility for an anti-war movement that does not include these people.

There is a segment of the left that seems to have permanently taken leave of reality. They live in a closed world, an insular world in which only supporting theories are tolerated, and the mental distance between their mindset and that of the rest of society has been growing even more rapidly since September 11th. They've cut loose from the "national narrative", or whatever you want to call it, and are now off in some other bizarre wonderland filled with assumptions strange and bizarre to the rest of society.

Think about the kind of conspiracy theories circulating. Heck, Gore Vidal is now bizarrely asserting that the Bush administration knew about Al Queda's plans and deliberately took no action to stop it. What universe does he live in???? He sounds like a freaking lunatic!

Seriously, these people look like raving psychos to the rest of us, ranting about imperialist plots and capitalist conspiracies and spouting wierd sounding marxist rhetoric.

It would be depressing if it wasn't so scary.
The foam at their mouths is so thick that I'm almost frightened into supporting the war.

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

Election irregularities update

Below are some early reports of voting irregularities. I’ll attempt to update them as more information comes in. If you are hearing reliable accounts of irregularities in your area, email me at The OmbudsGod:

► Boston: Reports of union officials entering voting booths and telling people how to vote.
► Georgia: When placing vote, and touching the screen for a Republican candidate, the box is incorrectly checked for the Democrat candidate. Other related problems.
► Montgomery County, Maryland: Word “Democratic” appears improperly in the header on all ballots.
► Duval County, Florida: Technical problems preventing ballots from being counted.
► DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe issues statement accusing "officials at the Republican National Committee and in Republican campaigns across the country [of] leading a coordinated strategy to intimidate voters and suppress the vote."
► Miami: Voter reports to AP that when he reviewed his touch-screen ballot, he saw his vote for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride show as a vote for incumbent Republican Jeb Bush.
► Seattle: Thousands of voters have not received their absentee ballots.
► Arkansas: Democratic judge enters ex parte order extending voting hours in heavily Democratic Pulaski County only.

11/6/02 UPDATE: So far, despite the cries of the vanquished, by Ameican standards this appears to have been a surprisingly clean election. Nevertheless, I'll continue to update with any new reports of irregularities.

11/7/02 UPDATE: Matt Drudge points us to some newly reported irregularities:
► Broward County, Florida, discovers additional 104,000 votes.
► Shannon County, South Dakota: Reports that election workers were altering ballots, purportedly to make them more readable. (The correct process is to create a duplicate ballot if a ballot cannot be read by machine and to preserve the old ballot). National Review reports that Shannon County has been the focus of allegations of fraudulent voting practices and that last-minute extraordinary returns gave the election to Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson.

Sunday, September 29, 2002

NEXT THEY’LL BE ISSUING ORANGE JUMPSUITS

James DiBenedetto blogs the debate over random drug testing in public schools. I don’t have much to add, other than I think its all part of the same trend toward extreme and unreasonable restrictions on civil liberties by the education establishment that was occurring even before 9/11. (Conservative Justices Thomas, who authored the opinion permitting random testing, and Scalia, who signed on, should both know better.) Public schools may stand in loco parentis, but they are still government actors and students don’t leave their Constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door – especially when the coercive power of the state makes attendance mandatory.



THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK
An important news item was broken by The Washington Post on a Friday evening and received little or no play in the nation’s newspapers. Here’s a brief version:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Election Commission has imposed a record $719,000 in fines against Democrats involved in the party's 1996 fund-raising scandals, according to a published report.

FEC documents described how Democratic fund-raisers demanded illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals in China and other countries in exchange for meetings with then-President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

Ombudsmen Sanders LaMont, of the Sacramento Bee, and Lou Galfand, of The Minneapolis Star Tribune, respond to criticism that the story received little or no play in the newspapers.

LaMont explains why the piece didn’t run in the Bee:

[National Editor Marl] Melnicoe explained that there was "a ton of state/Capitol news" that night, it was a big news day generally and the story moved late for the next day's editions.

The Post wire service did not send out an advisory that the story was coming, standard procedure if they consider stories significant. It also was not on the Post's list of articles it was planning to publish on its front page, a list available to Bee editors working that night.

Melnicoe also states that the piece first moved on the wires at 7:30 P.M. Friday night and that it was “a well-done, comprehensive story that we should have run.”

The Star Tribune did run the piece, but it would have been an unusual reader who would have spotted it, buried as it was in Saturday’s paper on page A15. Gelfand responds to readers who complained that the newspaper buried the story by noting that several other newspapers, including The Washington Post, also chose not to give the story prominent coverage. He notes that The Washington Times chose not to publish the piece at all.

So, why did a story about record fines being levied in relation to a conspiracy that raised millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions, from foreign interests, on behalf of a sitting President, receive such little notice? I think the answer is several-fold. The first is that the story was released on a Friday evening, the traditional time to release embarrassing news so that it will receive light coverage. Second, The Post decided not to give the usual warning that the piece was coming, so that many editors simply missed the piece, or the importance of the piece. Finally the piece is, in a sense, old news, as the illegal acts relate to President Clinton’s Presidential campaign of 1996.

Still it is curious that the matter was released on a Friday evening without the usual warnings. It’s almost as if The Post didn’t want other publications to pick up the story.

James DeBenedetto blogged some of this a week ago.



TAX-DEDUCTIBLE POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS FOR THE RICH
Mickey Kaus picks up on the ramifications of a piece by Rishawn Biddle. It seems someone’s already figured out a giant-sized loophole in the McCain-Feingold anti-First Amendment campaign finance reform law. Perhaps it should now be called the McCain-Feingold tax-deduction-for-wealthy-contributors Act.



THE TWIN TOWERS BEFORE 9/11
Unfortunately when I read Karen Hunter’s ombudsman column, in The Hartford Courant, about a full-spread photograph they published of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, I was suffering from 9/11 overload and didn’t take the trouble to look at the page.

This week, The Richmond Times-Dispatch's ombudsman, Jerry Finch, refers to that photograph as “spectacular.” He’s absolutely right. For the record, the photograph was taken from aboard a commercial airliner by Katherine Weisberger, a photography major at NYU.

Here are some links:
. Weisberger's photograph as a jpeg.
. A .pdf file of Weisberger's photograph as it appeared in The Hartford Courant. My favorite version -- use ([ctrl] [shift] +), once the image loads in Acrobat Reader, for the best view.
. A gallery of photographs related to 9/11, including this one, that sells 11x17 prints.

Friday, September 27, 2002

WHERE’S THE BLACK CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR?

Media Minded reports that Maryland gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend denounced her opponent, Robert L. Ehrlich, at an NAACP sponsored debate:

"He opposes affirmative action based on race," she said. "Well, let me tell you, slavery was based on race. Lynching was based on race. Discrimination is based on race. Jim Crow was based on race. And affirmative action should be based on race."

Well at least it’s out in the open. Ms. Townsend defines people by the color their skin. Since affirmative action is supposed to be about correcting historical patterns of discrimination, shouldn’t Ms. Townsend step aside and allow a qualified black candidate to run for governor? After all, when’s the last time a black served as governor of Maryland?

Oh wait, we're talking about a Kennedy. Never mind.



THE WASHINGTON POST’S PRINCIPLES
According to The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Michael Getler, four retired high-ranking military officers testified on Monday before a Senate committee about war with Iraq. Three retired four-stars generals, Army Generals John M. Shalikashvili and Wesley K. Clark, and Marine Corps General Joseph P. Hoar, urged caution. Hoar warned of high casualties “on both sides” and joined with Clark in speculating that war would “supercharge” terrorist recruiting efforts. Retired three-star Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney urged quick and decisive action against Iraq.

The Post chose not to report any of this on Tuesday. They did, however, report about:

a man named Brian Griffin, who is secretary of the environment in Oklahoma. It seems that Griffin had been randomly selected for search at the Oklahoma City airport as he was checking in for a flight to Washington. Griffin, according to Reliable Source sources, made a vigorous protest, but before he could produce proof of his position, inspectors found "a Ziploc bag filled with condoms." Griffin is divorced and single.

Later in the week, The Post informed readers that a corporate executive had recently visited a strip club.

Getler doesn’t mention it, but The Post is famous for its seven principles, which were promulgated by Eugene Meyer in 1935. The principles are published on The Post’s website and, so far as I know, have never been disaffirmed. They are:

. The first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth as nearly as the truth can be ascertained.

.The newspaper shall tell ALL the truth so far as it can learn it, concerning the important affairs of America and the world.

. As a disseminator of news, the paper shall observe the decencies that are obligatory upon a private gentleman.

. What it prints shall be fit reading for the young as well as the old.

. The newspaper's duty is to its readers and to the public at large, and not to the private interests of its owners.

. In the pursuit of truth, the newspaper shall be prepared to make sacrifices of its material fortunes, if such a course be necessary for the public good.

. The newspaper shall not be the ally of any special interest, but shall be fair and free and wholesome in its outlook on public affairs and public men.

By failing to report the testimony of former high-ranking officers regarding war with Iraq, The Post breached its second principle. By publishing news of an unmarried adult possessing condoms and of another private citizen's visit to a strip club, The Post would also seem to have breached the third principle.

Perhaps the editors of The Post should review their principles.

Thursday, September 26, 2002

WHAT DID EUROPE DO TO MAKE MUSLIMS HATE US?

A common theme of anti-Americanism in Europe is that the United States must learn what has made Muslim extremists hate us -- implying that we are at least partially responsible for the terrorist acts of 9/11. Perhaps a better question is what has Europe done to cause young Arab men to hate the west?

The Chicago Tribune’s ombudsman, Don Wycliff, attended a Chicago Council on Foreign Relations lecture given by "Thomas Friedman, The New York Times' three-time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and undisputed champion foreign policy analyst among American journalists." Wycliff reports that:

[Friedman] divides the hijackers into two groups, which he calls the Saudis and the Europeans.

The Saudis were the "muscle guys," the ones at the back of the hijacked planes whose role was to intimidate the passengers. These were recruited from among the legions of young, unemployed men in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world, men Friedman calls "the sittin' around guys."

The Europeans were not ethnically European--all the hijackers were ethnically Arab--but they had lived in Europe and, owing to the social rejection they experienced there, had become radicalized. "All converted to radical Islam as a result of contact with the West," as a result of being "stiff-armed," Friedman said.

Thus ripened to radicalism, these men--and many others like them--were ready for plucking by bin Laden...

In other words, the radicalization came about through exposure to, and rejection by, European culture. Al Qaeda simply focused that radicalism against America, which is the dominant military and cultural power of the west.

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

BORROWED THOUGHTS?

Professor Bunyip has noticed an interesting similarity between the postings of one Clinton Fernandes, on an Internet bulletin board, and the journalism of one Kenneth Davidson, who writes for The Age. For example:

Kenneth Davidson writing inthe Age on September 23, 2002:

"Iraq was a client state or, in polite terms, an ally. Client states are defined, according to US academic Noam Chomsky, by their obedience, not their values. Saddam was given diplomatic cover for as long as he was obedient to US interests. Now, he is damned as a monster.

And now, a July 24 post by a certain Clinton Fernandes on the Postive Futures bulletin board:

"As Noam Chomsky has remarked, client states are called "allies" in polite terms, and they are defined by their obedience, not their values. Saddam Hussein was an "ally" until he became disobedient. While he was obedient, he was armed and given diplomatic cover. When he became disobedient..."

VERY DIFFERENT SPIN ON THE SAME STORY

The Boston Globe’s ombudsman, Christine Chinlund, and columnist Ann Coulter each discuss the situation which began when a woman overheard a conversation between three Arab medical students. I make no representations as to the accuracy of either version, but they are interesting to compare and contrast. Chinlund’s piece was published on Monday, and Coulter’s appeared today.

Chinlund:

Eunice Stone listened as the men, one wearing a Muslim cap, chatted at a nearby table. She thought she heard them joking about 9/11 and plotting to bring down Miami, so she called the State Patrol. The students, detained a day later, explained they were talking about bringing a car down to Miami from their home in Chicago, to drive while they completed their clinical rotation at a South Miami hospital.

They denied plotting violence or joking about 9/11. They also denied authorities' later suggestion that they spiced up their conversation for Stone's benefit once they realized she was eavesdropping - making them sick tricksters, if not terrorists.

Coulter:

By my count, the Muslims have given at least five versions of what happened. Eunice Stone has given one consistent story. She has been interrogated by law enforcement officials and is corroborated by another witness.

…the [students] first told law enforcement officers they did it on purpose. Stone, they said, was watching them too closely and this [annoyed them]. So they decided to scare her. [Chinlund, by the way, says this was unsourced.]

…Next, the Muslims told reporters that Stone had "put a little salt and pepper into her story." A stunned CNN correspondent blurted out: "Salt and pepper?" He reminded them what Stone had heard them say. "Well, yes, whatever," came the reply.

Third, they tried out the hysterical-woman defense… One of the Muslims tauntingly demanded to know "how many other people witnessed this event that supposedly took place, first of all?" Well, at least one other person. Stone's son was there and he heard the conversation exactly the same way. He just thought the men were playing his mother and him for suckers…

Fourth, the Muslims … advised Americans to "read about other people and read about what they believe before we jump to conclusions."

…it now appears that their final answer is: They were talking about a car. They didn't say anything about 9/11 or 9/13, but the "bring it down" bon mot referred to bringing a car down to Florida. This occurred to them only after meeting with their lawyers….

Chinlund:

It is, of course, possible the medical students did change their story. It's hard to know exactly what was, and wasn't, said at the Shoney's breakfast table. Georgia authorities are still investigating the possibility of a hoax.

To the Globe's credit, its account did include comments from the students' relatives expressing doubt about Stone's allegations. And the paper did set the record straight a day later by publishing the denials - on page A18. But those efforts don't offset the omission of the students' denial in the initial front page story. Their words were essential for a fair portrayal of confusing events.

Coulter:

According to accounts in The New York Times, the men were uncooperative, refused to answer basic questions, gave false information and told contradictory stories. A bomb-sniffing dog reacted to the presence of explosives in both vehicles. After a careful search, however, no explosives were found and the men were released.

…the men and their families accused Americans, especially Southerners, of being ignorant racists. "Just because of the way we look or the way we choose to live our lives, we're persecuted," said the sister of one. Demonstrating her own open-mindedness, she explained the entire incident by saying, "Unfortunately, they stopped in a restaurant in Georgia."

Tuesday, September 24, 2002

ON A BIZARRE RELIGIOUS RITUAL AND OUTING AN FBI INFORMER

Gina Lubrano, ombudsman for The San Diego Union-Tribune, covers a couple if interesting issues today. The first entails prominent coverage of a (to me) bizarre ritual, practiced by some Orthodox Jews on Yom Kippur, which involves swinging a live chicken over someone’s head. This is supposed to transfer the person’s sins to the chicken. The bird is then sacrificed and given to the poor. The newspaper ran a photo of the ritual, which prompted a letter from the regional director of the anti-Defamation League who described it as “grotesque,” and wrote that:

It was as if they decided to show a picture that ostensibly represented how the Jewish community prayed on the high holy days by using the most extreme image representing a very small part of Judaism.

Lubrano also quotes from an Orthodox rabbi who, naturally, disagrees.

I suspect that most religions have practices and rituals that would seem bizarre if published with little context in a newspaper. The early Romans misunderstood the Christian sacraments and at least some considered Christians to be secret cannibals. Many Mormons wear “sacred garments” under their clothes. There’s nothing wrong with publishing this information, but it is important that the practices and rituals be explained and placed in proper context for readers. From the description Lubrano gives, that may not have been the case here.

More disturbing is The Union-Tribune’s complicity in revealing that Abdussattar Shaikh, a leader of the local Muslim community, was an FBI informant – an allegation he denies. Shaikh is reported to have unwittingly rented rooms to two of the 9/11 hijackers. The Union-Tribune was not the first source to reveal his status as an informant, that dubious honor going to Newsweek and “television reporters.” Nevertheless the newspaper confirmed that Shaikh was an informant, prompting complaints. One reader cancelled his subscription because the newspaper had placed Shaikh in “jeopardy.”

Lubrano apparently justifies this revelation on the grounds that Shaikh had denied he was an informer and in the context of supposed intelligence failures prior to 9/11. She writes that:

Because of what may be happenstance, Shaikh is in a difficult position. Yet the Union-Tribune's credibility would be at stake if it failed to report the news.

The likely consequences of their revelation are that Shaikh’s life is in danger, his future usefulness as an informer is gone and his example will dissuade other potential informers. If The Union-Tribune believes that Shaikh was duplicitous in his role as an FBI informer then they should come out and say so and put the evidence before their readers. Otherwise the news value of the information escapes me.

Lubrano doesn’t state why The Union-Tribune’s credibility would be at stake if it didn’t confirm to the world that Abdussattar Shaikh was an FBI informer. There is a war going on, and The Union-Tribune is doing their public a disservice by publishing this sort of unnecessary information. Unfortunately they are not alone.

JUST CALL IT “THE VULGARIAN”

The results of a survey carried out last week show that the [The Guardian’s] title as the world leader is quite secure. It revealed [so far this year] almost 700 stories in which the word fuck had been used, and 35 which had used the word cunt. The Independent still comes a very poor second (184 stories with fuck in them; four with cunt). The others are nowhere.

By comparison, the word wanker appeared in 82 stories, and crap in 392.

This represents an increase from 1998, when:

in the year up to [the end of October] there had been more than 400 pieces in the Guardian in which the word fuck or fucking appeared. In the same period there were 28 references to cunt...

The Guardian is so fond of the infamous c-word that one of their correspondents asked:

I don't want to make too much of this, but do we perhaps have a culture which finds it easier to print 'cunt' than 'vagina'?

Perhaps The Guardian should come packaged in a brown paper wrapper.


WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Lou Gelfand, The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s ombudsman, relates a story that I find troubling.

A twenty year-old adult, Michael Pigg, assaulted a 4 year-old boy of mixed race while reportedly directing “racially derogatory names at the child.” Rather than imposing “a traditional jail sentence,” Judge Robert King decided to impose a “ten-month counseling relationship” on Pigg with a retired surgeon, David Harris, who is a member of something called the “Red Wing Human Rights Commission.” For an unstated reason, Gelfand supplies the information that Harris is the grandson of a Jewish immigrant.

Gelfand reports that Pigg and Harris reached an agreement that, while Pigg could not talk to the press about the counseling, Harris was free to do so provided he did “not divulge certain details of Pigg’s life.” Any reason it was felt to be beneficial that Harris would grant “media interviews” about his counseling relationship with Pigg is left unstated.

Anyway, Harris was interviewed by the Star Tribune with the understanding that Pigg’s picture would not accompany the piece, because “the picture would destroy his relationship” with Pigg. It was also planned that the story would appear in the newspaper’s Variety section. Due however to some internal miscommunications, the Star Tribune gave the story front-page placement and used Pigg’s jail booking picture.

According to Gelfand, the story generated positive responses from readers -- at least for Mr. Harris:

"Knowing that even Mr. Harris is still learning and growing and continuing to find tolerance provides me with inspiration."

"You have written graphically about the marvelous involvement by a true man of peace."

"The judge's sentence seems to have been heaven sent for Mr. Pigg."

"While the world may be changed, either for better or for worse, one person a time, articles such as this might speed progress for the better."

Gelfand does leave one important clue that I find troubling. Pigg is quoted as telling Harris that, "I told you that you can't trust the newspaper."

It is appropriate, and even desirable, for a judge to find an alternative to sending a person to jail, when the alternative promises to have some rehabilitative value and the person does not pose a considerable threat to the public safety. A mentoring or counseling relationship may be an appropriate alternative.

In this case, however, Pigg himself was not permitted to talk to the press, and I see no legitimate purpose for Harris to be granting “media interviews” about his relationship with Pigg. Given Pigg’s reaction, “I told you that you can't trust the newspaper,” it’s clear that he was not in favor of Harris talking to the press.

The fact that a reluctant Pigg was being used to generate positive publicity for Harris and for the “Red Wing Human Rights Commission” reflects badly on the judge’s decision. He should insure that it doesn’t happen again.

LEAVE EUNICE STONE ALONE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s ombudsman, Mike King, writes that it’s time to leave Eunice Stone alone.

Stone ... reported to police last week that she overheard three men -- whom she described as Middle Eastern -- at a restaurant in Calhoun discussing what seemed like a plan to plant a bomb in Miami on Sept. 13. Her tip sent federal and state homeland security officials scurrying through two states before shutting down a busy stretch of I-75 known as Alligator Alley when they pulled over a car matching the one Stone had described.

It turned out there was no bomb or threat. It was either a misunderstanding on her part or a massively dumb hoax played by three medical students on their way to Florida.

King goes on to report that:

a few TV commentators ... assume she "profiled" the Arab-American men she overheard. Media crews hovered around her for days, so much so that by Monday night she sought emergency treatment for what she thought might be a heart attack.

She probably never expected her actions to generate such scrutiny and suspicion. Her telephone answering machine in Cartersville filled up five times over, her lawyer said. She heard and read reports of accusations that she made up the story. At one point she felt it necessary to hold a news conference to declare she was not a racist.

Then her lawyer said something that every editor should consider when covering a story such as this: "She doesn't understand why this story isn't over."

King says bluntly:

unless someone has some evidence that she lied to police, the story is over.

Note to assignment editors: Leave her alone.

I agree. The treatment Stone has been receiving at the hands of the media will work to dissuade others from reporting suspicious behavior. And when it comes to combating international terrorism that could have disastrous consequences.

Monday, September 23, 2002

THE LAST OF THE DOUGHBOYS

But No Man's Land is a goblin sight
When patrols crawl over at dead o' night;
Boche or British, Belgian or French,
You dice with death when you cross the trench

-James H. Adkin - No Man's Land

Jerry Finch, ombudsman for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, makes note of a sad passing. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs there are now no surviving veterans of the European Civil War (WWI) living in Virginia, and there are only an estimated 250 alive nationwide. There have been no public ceremonies, no public observances and no parades. The doughboys are mostly gone and largely forgotten.

Just as the American Civil War shaped the United States as we know it today, so too did the European Civil War shape the world order that was to follow. The Second World War was largely an outgrowth of problems created at the end of the First. By comparison, Reconstruction in the South was relatively benign and peaceful.

The last remaining veterans of the American Civil War were greatly honored and celebrated, both North and South. It’s a shame we haven’t done the same for the boys who went to Europe to at least try to make the world, in the words of Woodrow Wilson, “safe for Democracy.”
posted at 2:20 PM


THE SELLING OF THE PRESIDENT, 1996
James DiBenedetto points to a much-overlooked piece in The Washington Post about the Federal Election Commission finally getting “around to meting out punishment for the widespread and brazen campaign finance violations of the Democratic Party and specifically the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1996.” One of the more interesting aspects is that, according to The Post:

The FEC documents describe Democratic fundraisers who set specific prices for foreign nationals to make illegal campaign contributions in return for meetings with then-President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

Some of the "contributions" were funneled through dummy corporations with no assets, which served merely as conduits for money from China and other countries. It gets worse.

I credit the fact that so little has been done until now to stonewalling by Janet Reno’s Department of Justice. To my mind this stinks worse than either Teapot Dome or The Whiskey Ring. The Clinton Administration put itself for sale to foreign interests, and the stench goes all the way to the top.



TRUE LIABILITY REFORM, NOT ARBITRARY “CAPS”
Peter Sean Bradley makes good points about medical malpractice awards, although his point about insurance rates being driven by changes in interest rates applies to virtually all types of insurance, not just professional malpractice.

He points out that perhaps no group is as favored by juries as are medical doctors and that liability caps may harm the victims of malpractice by preventing them from receiving appropriate compensation. My experience in Virginia is that the cap does do harm and that victims of serious malpractice may not receive enough to cover future medical expenses that result from the malpractice, let alone any compensation for life-long pain and suffering.

Something worth considering is that the really outrageous civil-liability jury verdicts are in product liability cases, not professional malpractice. And tort reform for product liability needs to be handled at the Federal level. This is because of problems with horizontal federalism whereby standards set by one state can become the de facto standard for all 50 due to interstate commerce and forum shopping. Plaintiff’s attorneys will generally file suit in the state most favorable to their cause, with the result being that citizens of the other 49 states have little say in the standards being applied to products being sold across the country.

The solution is not some arbitrary “cap” on awards. An arbitrary cap may result in gross under-compensation in some situations, and have no effect whatsoever on trivial cases that should never have been brought. True reform requires that liability standards for products in interstate commerce be set at the national level.

Sunday, September 22, 2002

JUST CALL IT “THE VULGARIAN”

The results of a survey carried out last week show that the [The Guardian’s] title as the world leader is quite secure. It revealed [so far this year] almost 700 stories in which the word fuck had been used, and 35 which had used the word cunt. The Independent still comes a very poor second (184 stories with fuck in them; four with cunt). The others are nowhere.

By comparison, the word wanker appeared in 82 stories, and crap in 392.

This represents an increase from 1998, when:

in the year up to [the end of October] there had been more than 400 pieces in the Guardian in which the word fuck or fucking appeared. In the same period there were 28 references to cunt...

The Guardian is so fond of the infamous c-word that one of their correspondents asked:

I don't want to make too much of this, but do we perhaps have a culture which finds it easier to print 'cunt' than 'vagina'?

Perhaps The Guardian should come packaged in a brown paper wrapper.



WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
Lou Gelfand, The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s ombudsman, relates a story that I find troubling.

A twenty year-old adult, Michael Pigg, assaulted a 4 year-old boy of mixed race while reportedly directing “racially derogatory names at the child.” Rather than imposing “a traditional jail sentence,” Judge Robert King decided to impose a “ten-month counseling relationship” on Pigg with a retired surgeon, David Harris, who is a member of something called the “Red Wing Human Rights Commission.” For an unstated reason, Gelfand supplies the information that Harris is the grandson of a Jewish immigrant.

Gelfand reports that Pigg and Harris reached an agreement that, while Pigg could not talk to the press about the counseling, Harris was free to do so provided he did “not divulge certain details of Pigg’s life.” Any reason it was felt to be beneficial that Harris would grant “media interviews” about his counseling relationship with Pigg is left unstated.

Anyway, Harris was interviewed by the Star Tribune with the understanding that Pigg’s picture would not accompany the piece, because “the picture would destroy his relationship” with Pigg. It was also planned that the story would appear in the newspaper’s Variety section. Due however to some internal miscommunications, the Star Tribune gave the story front-page placement and used Pigg’s jail booking picture.

According to Gelfand, the story generated positive responses from readers -- at least for Mr. Harris:

"Knowing that even Mr. Harris is still learning and growing and continuing to find tolerance provides me with inspiration."

"You have written graphically about the marvelous involvement by a true man of peace."

"The judge's sentence seems to have been heaven sent for Mr. Pigg."

"While the world may be changed, either for better or for worse, one person a time, articles such as this might speed progress for the better."

Gelfand does leave one important clue that I find troubling. Pigg is quoted as telling Harris that, "I told you that you can't trust the newspaper."

It is appropriate, and even desirable, for a judge to find an alternative to sending a person to jail, when the alternative promises to have some rehabilitative value and the person does not pose a considerable threat to the public safety. A mentoring or counseling relationship may be an appropriate alternative.

In this case, however, Pigg himself was not permitted to talk to the press, and I see no legitimate purpose for Harris to be granting “media interviews” about his relationship with Pigg. Given Pigg’s reaction, “I told you that you can't trust the newspaper,” it’s clear that he was not in favor of Harris talking to the press.

The fact that a reluctant Pigg was being used to generate positive publicity for Harris and for the “Red Wing Human Rights Commission” reflects badly on the judge’s decision. He should insure that it doesn’t happen again.

LEAVE EUNICE STONE ALONE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s ombudsman, Mike King, writes that it’s time to leave Eunice Stone alone.

Stone ... reported to police last week that she overheard three men -- whom she described as Middle Eastern -- at a restaurant in Calhoun discussing what seemed like a plan to plant a bomb in Miami on Sept. 13. Her tip sent federal and state homeland security officials scurrying through two states before shutting down a busy stretch of I-75 known as Alligator Alley when they pulled over a car matching the one Stone had described.

It turned out there was no bomb or threat. It was either a misunderstanding on her part or a massively dumb hoax played by three medical students on their way to Florida.

King goes on to report that:

a few TV commentators ... assume she "profiled" the Arab-American men she overheard. Media crews hovered around her for days, so much so that by Monday night she sought emergency treatment for what she thought might be a heart attack.

She probably never expected her actions to generate such scrutiny and suspicion. Her telephone answering machine in Cartersville filled up five times over, her lawyer said. She heard and read reports of accusations that she made up the story. At one point she felt it necessary to hold a news conference to declare she was not a racist.

Then her lawyer said something that every editor should consider when covering a story such as this: "She doesn't understand why this story isn't over."

King says bluntly:

unless someone has some evidence that she lied to police, the story is over.

Note to assignment editors: Leave her alone.

I agree. The treatment Stone has been receiving at the hands of the media will work to dissuade others from reporting suspicious behavior. And when it comes to combating international terrorism that could have disastrous consequences.

Sunday, June 9, 2002

Anti-Israeli Bias

Gareth Parker addresses his complaint to OBG about the ABC's anti-Israeli bias.

OBG notes that bias in the media is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as the reporting is accurate. For example, the New York Times shouldn't publish fiction by Joseph Stalin's propagandists writing under the nom de plume Walter Duranty. Nevertheless, a thriving marketplace of ideas is essential to a free society, even when those ideas are clearly wrongheaded.

The problem is when there is a breakdown in the market. One way this can happen is through government ownership of the means of communication. Of the major English language government-owned broadcasters -- ABC, BBC and CBC – all three suffer from anti-Israeli bias, as does the western press, in general. Another way is when there is no competition. Many American cities no longer have competing newspapers, so the local paper monopolizes the coverage of the news, effectively shutting out alternative views.

Which brings us to the left-leaning Minneapolis Star Tribune, which rejects use of the word “terrorism” to describe sending human-bombs into crowded pizza parlors in Israel. Managing Editor Pam Fine explains, “This helps us avoid labels that might suggest we’re taking sides...” Not surprisingly, this prime example of cranial-rectal impaction has generated some criticism.

The Star Tribune employs an ombudsman. His name is Lou Gelfand and as Star Tribune reader Steve Meyer explains:

Every Sunday I read his column and he makes me spitting mad! His evasions and occasional halfhearted apologies for the paper's slanted coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are the worst... Is Lou Gelfand an ombudsman or an apologist?

Poor Lou seems genuinely puzzled as to why he receives so many more phone calls from readers on the right than on the left, a phenomenon he attributes to "a sort of cult thinking based on The Washington Times and stories that, sooner or later -- usually sooner -- are on talk radio...” He asks “Why is the political thinking on the left not as perverted or extreme as it is on the right?”

OBG suggests that Lou start by asking, "When is a terrorist not a terrorist?"

Sunday, June 2, 2002

Grammar controversy

Reader M. Brocklehurst supports OmbudsGod in the who vs. whom grammar controversy. A self-described grammar guru, she advises, “Tell them to go and split an infinitive or end a sentence with a preposition or best of all get a life.” Ms. Brocklehurst addresses the “whom boom” in her soon-to-be-published tome, “Everyday Vital English, A Grammar for the 21st Century,” which she describes as a “delightful read.”

Mrs. OBG recommends that OBG take Ms. Brocklehurst’s advice and stick to The OmbudsGod’s core mission. Otherwise, OBG will be dealing with such unanswerable questions as the one Mrs. OBG already has posed: “Why aren’t they called ‘Ombudspersons?’”

OBG currently is investigating complaints relating to anti-Israeli bias involving the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Minneapolis Star Tribune ombudsman, Lou Gelfand. OBG observes that anti-Israeli bias is pervasive throughout the media and that, as a rule, ombudsmen have failed to fully address the issue. Additional reader input on this and other concerns is encouraged.

OBG sends special thanks to Tim Blair for linking to this site. Keep the hits coming, Tim!

Saturday, June 1, 2002

Ombudsman, newspaper

A reader asks, “To whom do you complain when the ombudsgod forgets the English remnant objective case interrogative pronoun?” He is, of course, referring to my use of the conversational who instead of the stilted whom in my first post. OmbudsGod is reminded of why he chose to major in economics instead of English as an undergraduate.

Nevertheless, alleged grammatical violations by OmbudsGod may be reported to the Word Police.


A newspaper ombudsman, usually a veteran reporter or editor, serves as an external spokesperson for the public and an internal critic for the newspaper. According to guidelines adopted in 1982 by the Organization of Newspaper Ombudsmen (ONO), the ombudsman's duties are to: (1) represent the reader who has complaints, suggestions, questions or compliments; (2) investigate all complaints and recommend corrective action when warranted; (3) alert the newspaper to all complaints; (4) serve as an in-house critic; (5) make speeches or write to the public about the newspaper's policies, attitudes and operations; and (6) defend the newspaper publicly or privately when warranted.

To perform those functions, ombudsmen write newspaper columns, give speeches, circulate memoranda within the staff, and distribute questionnaires to persons mentioned in news stories.

The editorial independence of the ombudsman is a subject of debate in the newspaper field. Some believe that the person in this position should be exempt from contributing editorially to the newspaper for which he works, to preserve his neutrality in serving the interests of both the newspaper and the public; others point to the prohibitive expense of hiring a full-time ombudsman.

Use of the ombudsman in the United States came into existence only recently, the first newspaper ombudsman program having been established in 1967.


Who do you complain to when a newspaper’s coverage is terribly biased and the ombudsman is even more biased than the newspaper? The OmbudsGod!

My thanks to Tim Blair for the inspiration.

Thursday, February 21, 2002

SOMEONE IN FINLAND GETS IT, TOO

Finnish blogger Teemu Lehtonen reports on pro-invasion commentary carried in the pages of a local newspaper, Ilta-Sanomat. Lehtonen translates some choice parts of Juha-Pekka Tikka’s commentary:

"The weapon's inspections in Iraq are a good thing. For example, 25 divisions of extremely well equipped inspectors with air support sounds like an idea that should be acted upon immediately" .. "Or more seriously, the way to inspect for Saddam Hussein's weapons is to first remove him and inspect later"

Well, Saddam did agree “unconditionally” to inspectors, didn’t he?

UPDATE: Lehtonen's website seems to be afflicted with the infamous Blogspot linking bug. Scroll down to the post dated Saturday, September 21, 2002.



MAYBE THERE’S HOPE FOR EUROPE AFTER ALL
Meet Vegard the Bloodthirsty Norwegian.


KISSINGER, IRAQ AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER
The American Metternich lays out an excellent case for war with Iraq, the role of the U.S. in the global fight against terrorism and, just to give the Birchers something to chew on, he notes that “President Bush has affirmed America's commitment to a new world order.” (Don’t download the Korean character set. The piece is in English.)
posted at 12:56 PM